A starting point.

Over the next few months students from Carnegie Mellon School of Design will engage and work with members of the Hazelwood community to better understand how losses affect the identity of a community and how, in the aftermath of loss, memory of place changes overtime. We will work to address these issues by partnering with the Center of Life (COL), a faith-based, community-empowerment organization that serves residents in the greater Hazelwood neighborhood of Pittsburgh. Together, this collective knowledge will help tell a story about this community in an effort to invite conversation.

As a society we often avoid honest and open conversations about difficult subject matter like race, privilege, social exclusion and urban violence. We will all work together to understand how these types of inequalities result in misunderstanding, racism, and loss of social capital. In the end, we hope to create a meaningful narrative in a fixed environment that helps individuals convey the voices of forgotten lives, hopes, and dreams. Life is both fragile and resilient. We must remember, but we must also live.